Now that I once again have an operation laptop at home, you’d think I’d be all clikety clack at the keyboard, telling you all about how absolutely delicious my birthday weekend was. You’d think. But over the last few days, I have found myself with a really disappointing lack of recreational time because of these pesky chore lists I’ve made for myself. Lives of their own, they have. I’m just trying to simplify – that’s my goal – make life easier by reducing the amount of stuff hanging around. Only, the process? It’s anything but simple.
Like Saturday. I said, Hey, I’ll go through all this paperwork I’ve accumulated and organize my filing cabinet right quick. Right. Quick. Did I not think I was going to read and reread everything before making the agonizing decision of whether or not to keep a receipt for a PDA I don’t even own anymore? Silly girl. A few hours and more than a few paper cuts later, I had a pristine filing cabinet and a totally lost afternoon.
And like last night. After an eleven hour work day, I came home to make a quick dinner (breakfast for dinner – it’s the meal that feels like playing hooky) so His Dorkiness could go up to the college to take a math test. Dinner was scarfed and tidied up by 7PM and I thought, Hey, that’s great! I’ll spend an hour (it should only take an hour, right?) on Task in the First: Organizing My Office Closet and then crawl into bed to rot my brain on the Interwebs.
Notsomuch.
At 10:30, when I finally took the last bundle of crap down to the dumpster, walked the dog and washed the dust off my face, the day was o-v-e-r. Hal was posted on the bathroom counter playing Taps on a tiny bugle. We get up at 5:20, you see.
Tonight’s task involves sorting through my bathroom cupboards and drawers for old cosmetics and hair product, so uh, it’s not likely I’m going to be communing with the computer because I know there’s bound to be an incident with a set of hot rollers. They’ll work this time, I swear.
So, in lunch break summary fashion: I managed to stretch the birthday celebrations out over four days to include no fewer than three birthday dinners, a movie, an ungodly number of desserts and so many thoughtful cards and gifts and birthday wishes (thank you, all!) that I had one of those moments where I got all Linda Richman verklempt. It was, in short, delicious.
I am doing the same thing in my house. I am terrified of the filing cabinet… But simplifying takes FOR.EV.ER. Accumulating crap apparently not so much.
Happy your birthday was 4 days long and delicous!
Funny you post this, because for the last few days I’ve been staring down about 3 boxes of paper I feel some odd need to sort and file. Odd because I have lugged these boxes from apartment to apartment for YEARS so all the documents are shred-appropriate. Maybe I’ll just dump ‘em … hmmm …
Well, ever since moving just a few weeks ago, I have been avoiding the requisite crap that gets moved from apt to apt, city to city. I tell myself that it is because it is one-hundred-and-hell-o degrees, but that’s only part of it.
So, okay, thanks very much Heather; I am now going upstairs to have a showdown with at least *some* of The Stuff. Thanks for the encouragement.
(If anybody needs me, I will be sitting on the floor with a far-away look in my eyes, softly caressing chits of paper, mismatched lightbulbs, and copius amounts of twisty ties, expounding to no one in particular about all the uses they have. Really, they do.)
And best of birthday wishes to you, by the way!
I avoid getting chores done like that done, but when I actually hunker down and do them, it feels SO GOOD to get organized. N’est-ce pas?
try flylady.net, great plan for organizing and staying organized a little at a time!
Glad you had a good birthday. For future reference, other people pay good money for someone to come over to their homes and do just that. Seriously. Should you ever find yourself in need of extra money, you could totally, er, clean up!!
BTW – thanks for the example. I have a “to-do” list much like yours, and now I have motivation. (Only a little…..but I will take all the motivation I can get!)
Oooooh, I can so relate. I wrote a blog post a couple of years ago about how I started out just sweeping and mopping the kitchen floor and four hours later had: sorted and purged my filing boxes, cleared off and wiped down the top of the fridge, cleaned off all shelving/counters, done dishes, emptied trash… but had not swept and mopped the floor.
I’m an anti-pack-rat though, so I generally don’t have much stuff to sort and purge. It’s the cleaning I can’t be bothered to do.
Hello Heather… Happy Belated Birthday Wishes to You! Glad you had such a wonderful week!
Must be something in the air. I recently tackled not one, not two, but FOUR areas in my place that were in total disarray. Hall closet, bedroom closet (I literally had trouble finding matching shoes each morning), under the bathroom sink and under the kitchen sink.
Took an entire Saturday from about noon until 6 or 7 p.m Got rid of oodles of stuff — banana clips (remember those), hair gels that had long ago hardened, etc. — you get the picture.
Was exhausted at the end of it, but it felt sooooo good. And, because it had taken so long, I am now committed to keeping those areas clean and organized. Sure, I was tempted to just randomly toss my sandals in the closet recently, but then I remembered how long it took me to clean that closet and took the extra 30 seconds to put them back into their box.
I’m a total nerd — but each time I now open the doors to any of those four areas and see everything all neatly lined up, no clutter, no outdated items — I get a little bit of a rush!